Why Won't the Political Parties Talk About Space?

The Space Frontier Foundation, a non-partisan organization dedicated to the opening of space to private citizens and industry, slammed both the Democrats and Republicans for their platform positions on space exploration. Executive director Jonathan Card tells us why SFF came away from convention season unimpressed.

How did you judge the two parties positions on space?

It seems like you werent particularly impressed by the Democrats or the Republicans. Why?

We were not impressed by either party platform. You look at these party platforms and they dont seem to reflect either party at their best. The Republican platform was focused almost completely on the governments role and the governments programs . . . and nothing on a larger role that they play in the community, and nothing on the larger role that they play in American society.

And you associate the Democrats with inspiring visions and pushing toward the future. And the only mention of space is a single sentence, when in fact they had the most to say. Were actually big fans of what Obama has tried to do in office. But they never made an issue of it. They buried a lot of great achievements in a single sentence.

Lets start with Romney and the Republicans since they went first. Given the partys general stance of praising private industry, why do you think they didnt mention space except to offer what your group called "hackneyed praise" toward NASA and the government?

To give them the benefit of the doubt, we are talking about the leadership of the government itself. And so there is some argument that because theyre talking about government leadership, the relevant conversation is what the government is going to do. But what they chose to discuss didnt contextualize the way that government action is going to impact the rest of the U.S. and the role of the space program in the American space capability. It would be as if they had to talk about American manufacturing, and all they wanted to talk about was a single government-owned factory.

Its an unfortunate lack of vision. And its not shared throughout the party, I have to say. Gingrichs proposal for a lunar base by 2020 is extremely aggressive but not unreasonably aggressive. There are organizations in the U.S. right now that want to have a robotic base on the moon by 2022that was the last estimate I heard. So its not missing in the party as a whole. It just seems to be missing in the people who wrote the platform.

What about Romney himself? Has he said anything of substance about space?

Not to my knowledge. They only significant statement hes made about space was to play down Newt Gingrichs plans as unrealistic and hairy-fairy. Its not widely known how realistic those goals arehow possible those goals are. Its disappointing to see someone jump on an opportunity to be pessimistic about it.

How about the Democrats? Your main critique seems to be the utter lack of specifics.

It was literally a single sentence saying to the effect, "Obama did magnificent things and accomplished great goals," and [their platform] immediately moved on to another subject. The frustrating thing is, he did do amazing things and he did accomplish great goals that are going to benefit America for a long time.

What did you like about Obamas first term specifically? And why, then, do you think his party is so hesitant to talk about those achievements?

First of all, I need to preface this with (the fact that) we dont endorse particular candidates. So when I talk about this, Im talking about policy positions that we outlined and said, this would be great if somebody in government took this seriously. And then Obamas proposals were very consistent with that.

What we loved that the Obama administration embraced was this idea that after decommissioning the shuttle, that we would give American industry and the American private sector the chance to perform the orbital launch services that we would otherwise (and are) contracting to the Russian space program. It doesnt really make a lot of sense to outsource them to another country when American industry is 30 to 40 years old launching telecom satellites and launching the vast majority, if not all, of the military satellites and a lot of the NASA science satellites. There isnt any reason not to allow them to launch our human cargo as well, the astronauts. He embraced that solution; he started moving us down that road.

As for why the party platform is not embracing that? I think we need to look again at the fact that the president didnt write it. It was written by members of Congress, and they had a very different idea as to what the president should do, to the point of practically putting down technical statistics and specs into the appropriations bill to make sure that what were calling the Senate Launch System [the Space Launch System, or SLS] gets built rather that what we think to be a more rational way.

Clearly, they didnt want to dwell on the differences they had with the president.

The presidential election gets all the press, but how important are the Congressional elections for space?

Theyre going to be vital. A lot of the resistance to embracing the strength of the private sector and pushing toward settlement as an end goal is coming out of Congress. I understand their position; they have a serious problem with jobs during the recession. But we have to think of the larger good for the United States.

How much is the recession and economic tone of the electiondebt reduction and unemploymentkeeping the candidates from laying out bold visions for space? The only plan weve really talked about, Gingrichs moon proposal, was met with ridicule.

I think a time when people are looking for direction is exactly when you hold up a map. The idea that you have to lose inspiration and direction because people are directionless seems wrong to me. I think the reason that Gingrich was met with such skepticism is that theres so much poor information out there.

[For instance,] a lot of Republicans believe that the shuttle was integral to our military capabilities, which was not correct. And a lot of Democrats believe that the private sector in space launch doesnt exist, when as I said, its older than the cellphone industry. Theres a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding. Space is an exciting frontier, but not all of space is brand-new. Launch to low Earth orbit is a very mature industry. The satellite industry is pretty mature. And we need to take advantage of the maturity of the industry if were going to press on to things like interplanetary space travel, permanent outer space settlement, in-space manufacturing, or other things that are within our grasp. You cant keep treating what weve already done as new and keep building bigger and bigger versions of what weve already built.

So what would you want to hear from Americas politicians that would make you feel optimistic?

I want someone to take a firm position on why we go to space. SFF clearly believes the point of going to space is to go there to stay. We want not just exploration but settlements. We want to not just visit an asteroid but to mine it. There seems to be a belief in a lot of places that going to space is for going to space. I think it would help politicians to have some clearer purpose, to encourage people to believe theres a point to all of this. Because there is a point to all of this. But until you know where youre going, you cant tell if youre getting closer.